


melodrama

by orphan_account



Series: qui pro domina justitia sequitur [8]
Category: Political RPF, Political RPF - US 21st c., Real Person Fiction
Genre: Developing Relationship, Difficult Decisions, First Time, Introspection, M/M, Power Imbalance, Unrequited Love, this is more for me than it is for anyone else, when will this series actually be finished
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 05:54:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11224704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He feels so fragile. As though one wrong moment and he’d shatter into a million pieces, covering his hands with a thousand tiny cuts that go straight to his heart.





	melodrama

**Author's Note:**

> If you don't know who half the people in the tags are, [here is a short primer](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/15/15783384/trump-mueller-team-russia-investigation-dreeben-weissman-quarles-rhee-zebley) and [here is a longer one](https://www.wired.com/story/robert-mueller-special-counsel-investigation-team/).
> 
>  
> 
> ~~and yes, the title is based off of the new lorde album in general and sober ii (melodrama) in specific~~

The dinner is Ann’s idea so, of course, it turns out to be a splendid idea. They didn’t invite everyone, just a handful of his first hires, the ones he knew the best.

“We’re the core team,” Aaron tries to brand them.

Jeannie rolls her eyes and elbows his arm slightly as she stabs into her piece of pie. “We’re _all_ the core team; _that’s_ why we were hired.”

“And we don’t even know if there will be a ‘core team’,” Andrew adds. “Or however it’ll be defined. We don’t even know the scope of the probe yet.”

“Yeah,” Aaron shrugs, “but if there _is_ a core team, I’m positive that I’ll be part of it.”

“Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself there, Aaron?” Bob raises a brow.

He scratches the bottom of his chin, pretending to think about it for a moment. “All right, I’ll let you in on the core team too.”

Bob laughs, clapping his hands together, as Ann shakes her head beside him. “You know, I was under the impression that this was going to be a work-free dinner.”

“Ann,” he says, “you know that I don’t have a life outside of work.”

She scoffs. “Oh, please, you really think I don’t know?” her expression is serious, for a moment, but it softens once he reaches over and takes her hand. He gives it a gentle squeeze as she turns back to the others. “No, I meant the others. I assume they’ve got much more vibrant social lives than you do.”

“Ma’am, I _wish_ we did,” Aaron says, voice filled with faux severity for a few seconds before he breaks into quiet chuckles.

“Speak for yourself,” Jeannie hums. “I’ve got a vibrant social life – but I’m not going to brag about it in front of all of you.”

“Really?” Aaron leans his elbow on the table. “If a social life isn’t talked about at a casual dinner, then does it really exist at all?”

She takes a slow sip of her drink. “I don’t think that saying can be translated to fit this situation.”

“Whatever,” he waves his hand dismissively at her, turning over to Bob. “You get it, though, right?”

Bob pretends to grit his teeth, a playful smile breaking through as he says, “You know, I’d rather just stay out of – whatever this is.”

Andrew clears his throat. “I, for one, have been biting my tongue about work. I figured you wouldn’t appreciate it much, ma’am, all this shop talk.”

“It’s fine, Andrew,” Ann replies. “I’ve been listening to this kind of talk for most of my life now – another night of it won’t kill me.”

“What do you want to talk about?” Bob asks. He sets his fork down on his plate and leans back in his chair, legs spread casually.

“Well…” Andrew starts, pausing a moment to look around the room, “you three – and Quarles – you’ll all be dealing with a lot of familiar faces as the probe progresses. I know WilmerHale is a large firm, but I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that one of you four have some professional or casual connection with Brand or Gorelick.”

“We don’t know if we’ll have to deal with Brand,” Jeannie says. “She’ll only take over if Rosenstein recuses himself, which, well…” She trails off and turns to Bob, hand tucked under her chin, still holding her spoon. “ _Is_ Rosenstein going to recuse himself?”

Bob shrugs. He genuinely doesn’t know – at least, not at this point. “We’ll have to see,” he says aloud.

“What happens if Brand has to recuse herself?” Aaron asks. “I mean, I’m not sure she’ll have to, but in case she does – who’s after her?”

“That’s a little bit tricky,” Andrew says. He leans forward, one of his arms set on the table while he gesticulates with the other. “There are a couple of executive orders that’ve been signed recently that have changed how the line of succession works in the DOJ. Off the top of my head, I can’t name anyone after the Deputy Attorney General and the Associate Attorney General.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” Bob chimes in, hands moving in a placating motion. “We don’t know currently if Rand will even be taking over. No need to start speculating right now.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Jeannie nods. “No, if anything, we should be talking about the people we’re dealing with now. I’m not sure how big of a problem Kasowitz is going to be…”

“Based on his statements so far, I think he’s just going to be annoying,” Andrew shakes his head slightly. “Attacks against the DOJ, attacks against the FBI…”

“We don’t worry about personal attacks,” Bob says. His voice is firm and assuring. “Those aren’t legal obstacles, just political ones, and we shouldn’t let things like that distract us from our work.”

“Jamie might be some trouble, then,” Aaron says. “But that also depends on if we have enough of a case against Kushner and if we decide to pursue it. Same with Pence, and his file is more preliminary than Kushner’s.”

“Probably not for long,” Jeannie says.

“His counsel might have a conflict of interest,” Ann says, all of a sudden. “Although, likely not with any of you at WilmerHale.” Bob raises a brow at her and she gives him a confused look. “Cullen worked at McGuireWoods, and he’s the godfather of one of Jim’s kids.”

“Ah,” Bob nods, slowly, as though he’d known. And he had, of course he did, but it didn’t seem to hit him until just now that a man – someone who was friends with Jim – was now working for the administration that sought to discredit him.

He wonders how Jim is feeling about this.

“I think we should stop talking about work,” Aaron says, “before we start getting into classified topics that shouldn’t be discussed outside of a SCIF. I mean, for all we know, Bob could have his wires ‘tapped’.” He makes tiny air quotes and Bob laughs softly, pushing his worry to the back of his mind.

For the moment, at least.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Aaron, you really don’t have to do this,” Ann sighs, halfheartedly trying to stop him from picking up dishes off the table and carrying them into the kitchen.

“It’s perfectly fine, ma’am,” Aaron replies, and he sounds legitimately chipper, even this late in the evening. “I don’t even start getting ready for bed until four am. It’s fine.”

“He’ll be fine,” Bob assures her. “I’ll make sure he gets everything cleaned up. You should head off to bed.” He kisses her cheek, and she looks at him carefully.

“You didn’t talk to Jim about Cullen, did you?” she asks.

He sighs softly and shakes his head. “You know it wouldn’t have come up.”

“I know,” she says. She bites her lip for a moment. “Are you going to call him now?”

“I don’t think so,” he says, eyes flickering over to the clock on the stovetop. “It’s late. He’s likely sleeping. I’ll think about it in the morning.”

“All right,” she says. “Come to bed soon.” She kisses him back and he watches her go until it’s just him and Aaron, walking around the kitchen, wiping down counters and putting away leftovers and grabbing the almost-empty bottle of wine.

“You want to finish this up?” Bob asks, holding it out for him.

Aaron shakes his head. “No, I’ll be driving in a few.”

Bob nods. He drinks the few remaining sips straight from the bottle, downing them in one go and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before tossing it in the trash.

Aaron leans against the counter, scrolling through his phone, while Bob searches for wherever Ann put the dishwashing pods. He’s just loaded it in and is about to start the washer when Aaron suddenly laughs. It’s loud and disbelieving and he shakes his head.

“Oh my god, look at his.” He holds out his phone and Bob bends down a little to read it. It’s a tweet from Mike Huckabee – oh Lord, that man – something about how Bob apparently contacted him and he’s going to leak it to some poor puns of news organizations.

“I know I’m not very partisan,” Bob says, voice deadpan as he turns to look at Aaron, “but honestly, it shakes me to my core knowing that my name has even been _thought_ by Mike Huckabee.”

Aaron throws his head back in a laugh and Bob joins in with quiet chuckles, smiling gently down at him and watching Aaron smile back and there’s a heavy beat of a moment where time seems to stop, and then Aaron is leaning forward and then he’s kissing him, right on the lips.

He doesn’t close his eyes when Aaron does, and he doesn’t take his face, and he doesn’t kiss back. He counts down the seconds – one, two, three, four, five – and then, slowly, gently, pushes him back.

Aaron’s eyes are wide and sparkling and his lips are parted slightly. His tongue darts out momentarily before he whispers, “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Bob sighs, slow and heavy and deep. “It always means something,” he says.

Aaron doesn’t say anything for a moment, just standing there and staring at Bob with wide, blinking eyes, and then. “Please?”

It’s a soft, almost broken plea, and it’s barely out of Aaron’s mouth when Bob knows he has lost. Because, the thing is, he’s never been able to deny the ones he loves. He’s never denied his kids, he’s never denied Ann, he’s never denied Jim.

And he does love Aaron. They’ve worked together for so long, they’ve been at each other’s sides through so much; he trusts him, he loves him.

He raises his hand and cups the side of his cheek, skin warm and soft and smooth, and he knows that if he hadn’t given his heart away years ago, then this would be one of those moments since where he’d give it again.

Aaron is the one to lean up again, to kiss him again, and this time, Bob waits the seconds just to kiss back. His lips are soft, just as his hair and just as his skin, and it feels like something electric is running through his veins wherever Bob touches him.

Youth, he suspects, or maybe something else. Maybe.

They just kiss for the longest time. Aaron’s hands twitch and move, never staying still, never in once place for long. His fingers are carding through Bob’s hair, then trailing down his sides, then undoing his buttons and tracing lines across his skin, then holding his face and pulling him closer.

Bob doesn’t move his hand off of Aaron’s cheek, except to brush his thumb over the corner of his mouth. Because the thing is, he doesn’t want to hurt him. The rational part of his brain acknowledges that Aaron is a grown man who knows how to make his own decisions and can handle getting a little hurt; but the irrational part of him just doesn’t want to hurt him.

He feels so fragile. As though one wrong moment and he’d shatter into a million pieces, covering his hands with a thousand tiny cuts that go straight to his heart.

Aaron moves his hands down to Bob’s pants, pulling them down until they fall off on their own accord and then Bob hears the all-too-familiar rip of a wrapper as a condom is pulled over his dick. They stop kissing for a brief moment and Bob is just about to open his mouth to ask something – something along the lines of, ‘are you sure?’ or, ‘do you really want to do this?’, but his eyes are wide and pleading silently and, well…

Bob lost this fight a long time ago.

He takes him by the waist, pressing him against the nearest wall as he pulls off his pants and underwear. Aaron puts his arms around Bob’s shoulders and leans his head back, teeth gritted in anticipation.

Bob doesn’t give him a verbal warning – he feels like that would only invite the possibility that whatever spell they’re under right now would break and they’d have to deal with the consequences of this moment sooner than later – but he presses a brief kiss to the side of his mouth before inserting the first finger.

Aaron’s fingers scratch the back of his neck and he exhales through his nose.

He’s so different than Jim, Bob thinks, unintentionally, but that opens the door for the rest of his thoughts and they pour in. Jim is not like this – Jim is loud and panting and wanting, but not wanting for sex; what he wants is affection, to know he is loved, to know that there is someone who can take care of him when he doesn’t think he can. He always loses himself in the moment, always forgets who he is, just lets the emotions overtake him as he crashes under the waves.

But Aaron – Aaron, who lets out a sharp gasp when Bob massages his prostate, who leans forward to kiss him again and suck a bruise into the side of his neck, hands still roaming as though they can’t get enough of him – Aaron is different. It’s too soon to tell what he wants. If he wants anything at all.

Aaron lets out a whine – a real, genuine whine – when Bob removes his fingers, and they exchange a look as Bob lifts his hips and lines them up. They’re looking right at each other when Bob slowly pushes himself in and he can see the expression right on his face as Aaron throws his head back again and moans.

It’s very slow. Aaron’s dick is jutting out of his boxers and stands right between them as he starts rubbing furiously, while Bob keeps his hands where they are and rocks his hips, back and forth, careful and steady. It’s completely silent in the kitchen, no noise from the washer or the air conditioning or anything else. Just the steady rhythm of Bob fucking into Aaron and the quiet breaths of air they draw.

Aaron’s breath turns heavy and his moans are barely stifled and his eyes roll into the back of his head when Bob finally spills inside of him and it’s not long until he’s coming, panting right into Bob’s ear as he holds him through the aftershocks.

It’s minutes, maybe seconds, after he’s come that Aaron leans forward to kiss him again and Bob kisses back. He has a hand on the back of his head and he kisses him with all the energy he can muster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ann is still awake when Bob enters the room to grab his sleeping attire. She’s lying in bed, a book open in her lap which she closes to look up at him and raise a brow. He doesn’t respond, not immediately, grabbing his clothes from the dresser, and he sits down on the edge of the bed, away from her.

He’s addressing the wall when he opens his mouth but she knows his message is for her. “Ever do something that you think you’ll regret, immediately after you do it?”

“Yes,” she says, waiting to elaborate when he turns his head toward her. “Marry you.”

Bob lets out a halfhearted chuckle and shakes his head. “That’s not what I mean.”

“I’m being serious,” Ann insists. The laughter in his chest dies down as she sighs, turning to the window instead and looking at the moon and stars out in the distance. Like they are every night. She clears her throat and leans over to touch his arm.

“Look,” she says, voice soft and gentle, “we were both so young when we got married. You were certain you were going to be drafted, but you were just as certain that you didn’t want to lose me and I was certain that I didn’t want to lose you. Except…”

The pause goes on for one beat, then two, then Bob asks, “Except?”

“Except, after you’d gone, I started second-guessing myself,” Ann admits. She lets out another sigh. “I wondered what would happen if you were shot down and killed. I wondered what would happen if I never saw you again. And… and I wondered what would happen if you did, in fact, come back, and you decided you didn’t want to be with me anymore.

“I had a lot of worries, Bob,” she says. She’s still looking at him, eyes much softer now, filled with love and affection. “But, in the end, I stayed, and I’m glad I did. Because I love you.”

“I love you too,” Bob says softly. He takes her hand and kisses her palm.

She smiles, just a little, but there’s something behind it this time. Something he can’t quite put his finger on. She lets out a sigh. “You have a big heart, Bob. Please, take care of it.”

“I will,” Bob promises. He’s not sure what he’s promising, but if it gives his wife some peace of mind, then he’ll agree to it. He loves her too.

He heads straight for the bathroom, washing his hands and washing his face and turning off the faucet just to stare at himself for a few moments in the mirror. His mind is still sharp and his body works like a charm and he’s a little old but it’s not going to stop him.

Not when there’s work to be done.

Bob dries his hands and changes his clothes and he’s just about to leave when –

When his phone rings. He has a good feeling as to who it is, because there’s no one else it could be, so he doesn’t bother to check. And there’s a long moment where he just lets it ring – once, twice, thrice – before sliding his hand into his pocket and pressing it to his ear.

“Hello,” Jim says. He sounds a little tired, but more anxious than anything, and there’s a slight echo of ice cubes hitting the edges of a glass. “Did I wake you?”

“No,” Bob replies, voice already taking on a softer tone as he leans against the wall. The lights are dimmed and the world is quiet, just for now. “No,” he says again. “You know I’m always here for you, whenever you need me.”

And he is, always.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to read more about [Rachel Brand](https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/national-security/former-bush-official-rachel-brand-takes-over-no-3-position-at-justice-dept/2017/05/25/75e3aa80-40bb-11e7-8c25-44d09ff5a4a8_story.html); if you want more on [Pence's lawyer](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pence-hires-outside-counsel-to-deal-with-russia-probe-inquiries/2017/06/15/c40ef55c-51f5-11e7-a973-3dae94ed3eb7_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.96762ac4b9ba); and if you want more on [what the special counsel might be doing](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/special-counsel-is-investigating-jared-kushners-business-dealings/2017/06/15/5d9a32c6-51f2-11e7-91eb-9611861a988f_story.html?utm_term=.cd8b15c386f1).


End file.
